Celyad Reports Impressive Preliminary CAR-T Results in Solid Tumors

Celyad has announced no toxicity and stable disease in colorectal cancer patients after just 3 months of its first trial testing CAR-T in solid tumors.

After only 3 months of follow-up, Celyad already has positive results for its CAR-T NKR-2 therapy, which is designed to target 80% of tumors. Two of the three patients with metastatic cancer have achieved stable disease status. Both have colorectal cancer and their disease had been progressing even after undergoing at least two chemotherapy treatments each.

“Despite being dosed only at a tenth of the expected efficacious dose based on animal experiments, the results show a stabilization of the disease,” said Christian Homsy, CEO of Celyad, in a statement. The third patient, with pancreatic cancer, is still in progression, and the company is now enrolling patients to test a higher dose.

With no toxicity found in any of the three patients and already showing efficacy, Celyad’s therapy is showing potential to surpass Novartis or Kite Pharma, which are running to be the first to put CAR-T on the market but have reported severe side effects and even deaths. Juno Therapeutics, which used to lead the pack, had to terminate its lead CAR-T program due to 5 patient deaths. However, it is still very early to determine whether Celyad will be able to maintain such promising results in higher doses and larger scale trials.

Editor’s Note (21/06/2017): Celyad has published further results speaking to the therapy’s potency in Future Oncology

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